Chairman's Report

A big welcome to all our members both new and old to the 2007 season.

We are continuing to find it difficult to obtain fully sponsored events in the current economic and political climate. Therefore, this season has a familiar look to it, going back to Stanford, Gun Powder Mills and Sheffield. However, for Sheffield we have obtained a full sponsorship fee which includes all our cavalry. This is due to you, the members, performing admirably there over the last few seasons, and we are now the star of the show. In addition, we have managed to secure a new full event venue at Harperley Prisoner of War camp in County Durham, and following successful discussions and a very positive meeting with Soskan, we have been invited to a couple of their shows and we have invited them to Stanford Hall. The first Soskan show at Wilton House (first May Bank Holiday) promises to be an absolute cracker with tactical in the woods, a public battle, and lots for the civilians and non-combatants to do as part of the tactical scenarios. We have promised as full a turnout as possible to this event and have asked that the camping be extended to the Tuesday morning to enable our long distance travellers to have an extra day to get home. The second event to which we have been invited is the Bloxham Steam Fair (23/24 June). We have not committed to this as a full ACWS attendance and are currently leaving it to individuals and regiments to make their own decisions, but we will need to let Soskan know the week before how many of us are expected. Also, we have a couple of regimentals and training weekends arranged to hopefully give as many of you as we can events for this season.

We are hoping to learn from the current difficult economics of sponsorship and try and target our efforts for next season in the right directions. Hopefully, the experiences of joint events once again with Soskan will enable us to offer larger and better re-enactment weekends and share some of the overheads in running events (such as toilets, wood, ground hire etc.) I am therefore more confident now that we can benefit and prosper from our experiences and should lead to an even better and fuller season next year. In the meantime, please bear with us as we try to get through this comparatively lean season.

Regards
Mike Bussey
Chairman & Webmaster

The above article first appeared in the ACWS Newsletter, Spring 2007